Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Barnes for that. I understand there will be hard choices but I hope we will not see a repeat of what happened previously where those most vulnerable in society were affected again and again, and harder and harder, under the so-called recovery, while so many people never saw any kind of recovery.

Mr. Barnes made another point around the lack of clarity on the non-voted expenditure. I am interested to hear if he is familiar with how other EU jurisdictions have oversight of non-voted expenditure, which could help inform the committee on how to improve transparency in that regard.

I am also quite interested in the whole issue of capital expenditure. We are being told that there will be an extra billion euro here, there and everywhere for capital expenditure but what it really boils down to is €9.3 billion in 2020 and it will be increased to €9.8 billion in 2021. We are aware of how important capital expenditure is in having a significant multiplier effect. If there is a vaccine in 2021, which could change the spending on income supports, does Mr. Barnes feel that this funding could be redeployed for capital spending to boost the growth in the overall budgetary balance?